Pre-season
The 2007 pre-season began with a number of driver and team changes which occurred during December 2006 and January 2007. The most important of the driver changes being Greg Murphy moving to Tasman Motorsport from Paul Weel Racing and Steven Richards changing not only teams, but also manufacturers by moving from the Holden based Perkins Engineering to the Ford Performance Racing team.
A number of team changes also occurred during the off-season with Vodafone being the naming sponsor for Triple Eight Race Engineering and Jim Beam joining forces with the Dick Johnson Racing team.
Most of the team launches occurred during late January and early February with a few exceptions, including the launch of Mark Winterbottom's FPR car in early January. As well as the individual team launches, an official season launch was held in Sydney's Martin Place on the 15th February.
A number of testing days were also held during the pre-season. These tests were conducted at the two race circuits used as test tracks, Queensland Raceway (TeamVodafone, DJR and WPS Racing) and Winton Raceway (most Victorian based teams including HRT, Ford Performance Racing, HSV Dealer Team and Perkins Engineering). Both of these major tests were conducted on the 19 February 2007.
One of the other major stories of the 2007 pre-season involved both of Holden's most supported teams, being the Holden Racing Team and the HSV Dealer Team. Both teams temporarily had their TEGA licences revoked meaning they would not be able to compete in the championship. This was due to issues relating to the ownership of both teams. This problem related to the ownership of the teams, where under V8 Supercar regulations, one person can only own one team. Officially, Mark Skaife owns HRT and John Kelly (father of Todd and Rick) owns HSV Dealer Team, however the close relationship between the two teams and the presence of Tom Walkinshaw in both teams clouded the ownership of both teams. The teams had their licenses reinstated temporarily pending the presentation of documents proving the ownership of each team to TEGA. On the 22 February 2007, the HSV Dealer Team produced the required documents and has been fully reinstated to the championship, and HRT was cleared to race on 27 February 2007 after satisfying TEGA that Mark Skaife is the true owner of the team.
Read more about this topic: 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series